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Three culprits in Vickery-Cox incident

Columnist

A sequence of events which began at a boundary throw-in last Friday night has culminated in Tyrone Vickery’s suspension. A breach of the rules as execrable and blatant as his knock-out blow to Dean Cox could not but be severely punished.

So Cox has been injured and Vickery suspended. The tragedy, though, is that this should never have happened.

In lashing out angrily as he did, Vickery was responding to an obvious breach of the rules by Cox. In the manner that makes old ruckmen misty-eyed, the Eagles veteran had belted Vickery in the guts with his elbow before the ball was thrown in.

Let’s consider that action. The ball is not in play, which is significant; one player deliberately swings his arm back and strikes his opponent; that opponent – 98 kilograms of him – is put on the deck grimacing in pain. And no free kick is awarded.

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How different it would have been had umpire Jeff Dalgleish blown his whistle, awarded Vickery the free to which he was entitled, and told Cox he would report him if the action was repeated. Cox would not have suffered concussion and Vickery would be playing this week.

The fact is there were three culprits in this sorry scenario. The one who had the power to nip the chain reaction in the bud failed in his job and, indeed, in his duty of care.

Football is a tough game and umpires have the task of enforcing the rules so that, as far as possible, pain doesn’t turn to anger and anger to violence. It’s interesting that the umpire’s role in this incident has barely been the subject of comment. In this, I too plead guilty.

In weekend radio discussions about the matter, where assessments and judgments were made, I found myself seduced by the salacious element of the knock-out punch. It wasn’t until I watched the Monday night television analysis that the screamingly obvious occurred to me.

And this is symptomatic of what happens in this era of non-interventionist umpiring. We are all numbed to the constant reality of important free kicks being ignored.

When it comes to apportioning blame for this, Dalgleish is well down the totem pole. The AFL football operations department, the umpiring coaches, the rules committee, and even some influential commentators are above those who blow the whistle. The umpiring department now concedes Dalgleish should have paid Vickery a free kick. They should be asking themselves why such oversights might occur.

Leigh Matthews said on 3AW recently that, as a coach, you would never tell your players not to make mistakes because that would paralyse them. Matthews opined that in telling umpires only to pay what the metaphorical fan in the back row can see – this year’s stated approach – the umpires’ coaches are effectively doing this. Better to not blow the whistle than blow it and risk getting it wrong. If you doubt that one umpire’s inaction can have serious consequences, just ask Ty Vickery and Dean Cox.